Nicolaus Chaffin

A lot of blood, sweat, and queers went into this year’s Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR), the only residency in the country devoted exclusively to queer artists. While FIAR’s mission runs the risk of self-marginalization, it seems to have opened up an essential—not inherently essentializing—space for this year’s residents (Jade Yumang, Kris Grey, Nicolaus Chaffin, R.E.H. Gordon, and Brendan Fernandes). As Nicolaus Chaffin told AFC, “the importance of it all has been the ability to not use facets of our work to address and explain our positions, but rather just make the work, let the work exist.”